


did you get enough love, my little dove

by redbatman



Series: season 12 [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: All I'm Getting From You Is Colours, Angel True Forms, Canon Temporary Character Death, Castiel as God, Castiel's True Form, Castiel-centric, Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, M/M, POV Castiel, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, Suicidal Ideation, True Forms, nothing explicit or beyond the realm of canon im just doing careful tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 19:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbatman/pseuds/redbatman
Summary: But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.





	did you get enough love, my little dove

**Author's Note:**

> 12.23 coda. takes place directly after the episode. imagine it like they dropped the curtain and i stuck my foot in the way and forcibly shoved the curtains open again. title is from "fourth of july" by sufjan stevens which is consistently the Ultimate Sad Deancas.

Dying isn’t the same, when you’re an angel. Humans die and they go to the dust, to the ashes, and so forth. They become the Earth. Their souls move on. A human soul passes through others, on its way to the next plane, the final bus stop. It touches people. It moves through them. When someone dies, their soul rips through the centre of the people closest to them. It’s tangible and it’s violent. Castiel has seen it bring people to their knees. Seen it control heartbeats.

When an angel dies, that’s different. An angel is a song that rings out in the polyphony of creation. An angel is a part of the stars and the most unfathomable darkness in the sky. The true sky, beyond the white radiant light deception of ocean blue which holds the Earth together in a protective bubble. A kind force of nature that says _you don’t have to see how vast this truly is. You can live your lives without seeing._

An angel is part of everything that has been, everything that is and everything that will be. An angel dying is a cosmic fucking event, a natural disaster on a macro-universal scale. A piece of the sky is being torn out. A line of creation is being scribbled off the page. When an angel dies, distant planets no human will ever see get knocked out of orbit. Comets fall from the sky. When an angel dies, the whole world feels it, whether they know it or not.

And no angel has belonged to the Earth as much as Castiel.

 

**_i_ **

 

He lies there, eyes closed. He could be resting, prepared to open his eyes at any second once he’s ready. When he’s strong enough again.

Dean has been kneeling in the dirt. The amount of time does not matter, really. It feels to him like he’s been kneeling in the dirt forever. In this moment, he’s confident he will stay here forever. He clasps his hands together like a prayer and bows his head to the ground. He sobs. Opens his clasped fingers and buries his face behind them, curling forward towards the ground until his head is in the dirt. Prostrate in front of a sky that does not care. In a world where God has left.

Tears are smearing dirt tracks down his cheeks as his knees make hollows on the ground. Some might call this a vigil.

Lightning strikes the tree by the lake in half. It splits like it’s been snapped in two. He does not react. The light flashes on the water, an answering crack of energy echoes back from the mountains across the bay. Thunder rolls through the bones of the ground. He does not move.

Castiel is flying.

At first he thinks he’s dreaming. He only occupies this form in the space between reality and thought. All his own dreams are music. He hears the songs they used to sing across Heaven. Each pitch is accompanied by a burst of pure colour.

For a moment, he forgets everything. That moment becomes an age. He stretches out the oil slick shiny span of his eight wings to dip into the passing timbres like a paddle dips into water. He drags them through the song and colour. His eyes flicker in every direction, the thousand of them trying to take in visually every element that he can’t yet feel.

The song starts to change. The song says _wrong._ The song says _loss._

He listens carefully. He closes all his eyes.

There’s a road in the crescendo and he can feel it stretch out through the stars. It’s ending somewhere. Something is reaching out to him.

He answers the call.

 

**_ii_ **

 

Dean won’t go inside. Sam has given up trying to convince him otherwise, and watches him from the window, sick with worry.

His brother has built a cross with his own two hands, using the wood from the fallen tree. When Dean had risen from the dirt and began pulling at the burnt lightning-struck wood with purpose, Sam had asked if he wanted help burying Cas. He swears to God, Dean looked about ready to rip his throat out with his hands.

“Don’t _touch_ him,” he hisses, almost baring his teeth with anger. He looks like a wounded, cornered creature. Sam raises his hands in surrender.

He speaks softly like he might to a terrified animal. “I won’t,” he says, low. “I won’t, Dean. But we can’t just leave him here.”

“I-” Dean shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry. I didn’t-”

“It’s okay,” Sam interrupts, lump rising in his throat. “It’s okay. Just. Dean. We can’t stay here. He can’t stay here.”

His voice is watery, small like a child. “I know,” he almost whispers. “But I-” tears spill over his eyelashes and his mouth trembles. “I can’t,” he digs at his hands, the cuts and scratches he’s got from pulling at the tree. “I just. Not yet. Not yet.”

“Okay,” Sam says. “Okay.”

He turns to go and feels a tear slide down his face as well.

“Wait-” Dean blurts and he turns back. “He-” he’s shaking. “I mean-” he wipes furiously at his eyes. “He loved us.”

Sam doesn’t tell Dean that he already knows this. He doesn’t ask Dean what he means. He knows what he’s trying to say.

_I love him._

 

* * *

 

Castiel is Seeing.

Space and Time are one and the same, and he travels through them now. It is not linear, but then again time is only linear by illusion. For simplicity’s sake, we all get one narrative to follow. One life to live.

Castiel is more than one creature and so he sees multitudes.

He sees his garrison, his brothers and sisters. He sees the gardens in Heaven. His favourite pocket dimensions. The eternal Tuesday afternoon.

He sees Uriel. Anna. Raphael. Gabriel. Rachel. Hannah. Benjamin.

He sees those he’s killed. He sees those he’s saved. He sees those he failed.

He sees the Earth. He sees Jo and Ellen. He sees Claire. He sees Sam. He sees Mary.

He sees Dean.

He sees Dean. He sees Dean. He sees Dean.

In one moment Dean is stabbing his vessel in a warehouse covered with sigils. He is throwing his head back and laughing, _I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time._ He’s screaming Castiel’s name. A thousand times. A thousand ways. He’s praying.

It strikes Castiel suddenly, almost violently, much like a stab wound to the chest, that he is the only one Dean has ever had Faith in.

He hasn’t thought at all since he arrived in this space. Thinking is very much a human thing to do. Angels act. Angels know the path forward.

Castiel has not known the path forward for almost a decade. That time has felt as long and as hard as the millennia he existed before any beautiful boy begged him to overwrite fate.

He thinks, _I wish he could have said he loved me. Just once._

The music is silent now. He knows his journey is over.

The colours blow away like wind being parted by a fan. It is so dark. It is so bright.

There are so many wings.

“Father?” Castiel sings.

“No,” They are endless. Faceless. A rolling mass of painful light and crushing darkness. There are so many wings. So many. There are two pitches, but only one voice.

“No, and Yes,” the Creator says. “Hello Castiel. It is the dawn of the Third Day.”

 

**_iii_ **

 

On Earth, the sun rises. The colours shine on the lake, which is so still, like glass ready to be shattered. It is a beautiful day.

“Where am I?” Castiel’s wings are sharp. They shine like the long dead stars whose light reaches the world across time and space. He does not avert his gaze.

“This is Creation,” the creature says. “This is Everything.”

“I was killed,” His song is flat, cold. “Why have you brought me here?”

“You were only killed because you allowed yourself to be killed,” Every eye is fixed on him. “You turned your back because you believed you owed a debt to the Universe. You were playing heads or tails with your own life, Russian Roulette with your own soul. So in the end, you were Testing Us. You were Tempting Us,” The wings flutter, as if to scold. To say _did you think you could get away with this?_ “But Temptation means nothing to Us. we may choose what we wish to choose. We will always choose you, Castiel. Champion of Earth.”

“But why-” Castiel fans his wings in distress. “Are you the Darkness?”

“Yes,” everything becomes empty. So dark. Nothing. “And No,” light returns. Colours ebb and flow through space. “We are Both. We must be Both. The universe cannot be balanced otherwise.”

"So this is where you went,” there’s no emotion to his song. It’s deadpan. Matter of fact. Resigned.

“Are you angry?” The wings flutter again.

“Yes,” his eyes snap open wide. “Yes. I’ve been so angry for so long.”

“Are you angry with us?” The lights blink on and off.

“You are the One I’ve always been angry with,” he’s never felt so aware. So awake. “You abandoned Creation from the start. You abandoned Everything. You never cared. You’re selfish. You’re selfish.”

“The role of a Maker is not to control, but to Create,” Their tone is unmoved.

His wings flare in distress. His song is dissonant, overwhelming. “Why did you Make?” he demands. “Why did you Make if you do not care? You’re no God. You’re not God.”

“No,” They seem pleased. “We are not. You See now.”

Castiel stares. “I don’t understand.”

“You are,” There is almost a cacophony of colours and light. “You are God.”

He bristles. “No. No I failed. I failed to be God.”

“You never stopped,” They’re shining so brightly. “You did not fail, Castiel.”

“I don’t understand-”

The Creator speaks in a chorus of a thousand voices.“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

“What does the Bible have to do with-”

“You know God and Jesus are the same person, Castiel,” They almost sound...amused. They still speak in human tongues. “You gave yourself to Earth. You sacrificed yourself for the world.”

“I won’t control people,” Castiel says. “I won’t lead them. I will take your power. I will help them. And I will love them.”

The voices hum. “You will find you know the way back.”

 

* * *

 

Dean wakes up next to the cross, alone.

There is a figure standing at the edge of the water.

“Hey!” he gets up, yelling. “What have you done? What did you do with him?”

Castiel turns. “Dean,” he says, and he smiles.

“Castiel?” his voice breaks in half.

“Hello, Dean,” they’ve closed the distance and Castiel is cradling Dean’s face in his hands.

“Castiel,” his voice is so quiet, but so sure. “I love you.”

 

* * *

 

_Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot._

_They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”_

_“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus._

_He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”_

_Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”_

_Jesus said to her, “Mary.”_

**Author's Note:**

> this is like the weirdest most existential thing ive ever written and the most like abstract and conceptual and like deeply overtly religiously inspired? my ex catholic brain kind of feels like i'm gonna burn in hell for this but i've been sure of that for years so thats nothing new.
> 
> yes i was raised catholic if u could not already tell from literally every single aspect of this work.
> 
> i wrote this while hungover from finale night and drank two energy drinks during and i feel kind of like i can taste sound. that may have contributed to my gleeful retconning of like every established canon fact about angels and god and stuff. but in my defense, the canon facts suck.
> 
> i am gaydean on tumblr if u wanna check that out and/or reblog the tumblr post of this


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